By Gerardo Papalia for the Saker blog
By switching its allegiances, Italy played a decisive role in the outcomes of both the First and Second World Wars. If Italy were to abandon the US centred world system to join BRICS it could once again decisively turn world history onto a radically different path.
The conflict in Ukraine has brought the world, and Europe in particular, to a turning point. In the coming months the destinies of both the EU and NATO will be determined. The outcome could depend on the position taken by Italy. Should the Italian government continue with its current foreign policies, both the EU and NATO are likely to survive. If Italy leaves either, or even distances itself in favour of closer alignment to the BRICS group, this decision could lead to the collapse of the current US centred unipolar world order and quicken the dawn of a multipolar world.
The BRICS countries today represent more than 40 percent of the world’s population, almost 27 percent of the world’s land surface, and almost one third of the world’s economic output measured in Purchasing Power Parities. The impetus of Russia’s recent intervention in the Ukraine has led to strengthened ties between Russia, China, India and Iran, increased OPEC resistance to US diktat, and has accelerated the shift away from the US dollar as the international reserve currency. Recently, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin called for a transition away from the unipolar US centred world towards a multipolar international order.
But first, a little history.
In 1902 German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow famously described Italy’s foreign policy as being one of ‘waltz turns’, by which he meant that its government could flirt with other countries but never really change partners. Italy had been part of the Triple Alliance with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire since 1882. With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Italy sought to bargain its non-participation against its allies in exchange for territorial concessions of areas containing majority Italian-speaking populations, in particular Trieste, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Dissatisfied with the response, Italy switched sides in 1915 and joined the Triple Entente with France and Great Britain. Its participation contributed to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1919.
In 1939 Italy was faced with a similar dilemma. Benito Mussolini, its leader, had the choice of siding either with its Axis ally Germany, or remaining neutral in exchange for concessions from the Allies. He dallied for nine months before entering the war on Germany’s side in June 1940. By July 1943 the Allies had invaded Italy from the south, Mussolini was dismissed and Italy’s government switched sides to become a co-belligerent with the Allies. Italy’s participation in the war arguably diluted the German war effort by dragging the Mediterranean and the Balkans into the conflict, and hastened Germany’s defeat.
Although some patronisingly attributed Italy’s apparent inconstancy to the national character and others to its economic weakness relative to the Great Powers of the time, in particular Great Britain, France and Germany, the primary reason for it was geostrategic. Italy is a peninsula with its north attached to the European continent at the Alps and its south almost acting as an island in the strategic centre of the Mediterranean. At the beginning of the modern era the north of Italy was progressively absorbed into northern European economic and political systems while the south, having to contend with the Ottoman monopoly over the sea, atrophied.
This divergence accelerated after unification in 1861, partly because of economic policy and partly because the colonial land grab by the other European powers at the expense of African and Middle Eastern countries deprived the south of its historical hinterland. Initially, Italian governments sought to correct this imbalance by becoming part of the Triple Alliance. By securing the country’s northern borders, this alliance allowed it to embark on colonial adventures, notably the failed first invasion of Ethiopia in 1895–96 and the conquest of Libya in 1911. In the First World War, Italy’s switch to the Triple Entente then enabled it to annex Trieste. When Mussolini came to power in 1922, his foreign policy oscillated between the two options: to expand Italy’s continental ambitions, particularly in the Balkans, or its colonial empire in Africa. One could argue that his inability to prioritise one over the other contributed to Italy’s defeat in the Second World War. However, Italy’s capitulation in 1943 also represented a move away from a Mediterranean-focused policy to a continental one to preserve the country’s heartland.
The post-Second World War order has been more durable than the previous one, largely due to the tutelage of the United States and the Soviet Union, which guaranteed the viability of the newly founded United Nations. Within Europe this global process had its parallel in the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, followed by the European Economic Community in 1958 and the EU in 1993. Italy has been a member of and has played a leading role in the establishment of all three, with old nationalist rivalries largely set aside in this process.
The consolidation of the EU came about under the defence umbrella provided by the North Atlantic Treaty signed by a number of European powers, including Italy, in 1949, with the purpose of defending Western Europe from the Soviet Union. This later became NATO.
Both the EU and NATO have represented the pillars of Italy’s continental strategy for many years. However, these mainstays have recently begun to show cracks under the strain of the Ukraine–Russia conflict. The EU has been imposing increasingly stringent sanctions against Russian imports since 2014. These increased following Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine in February 2022. The NATO alliance, of which Italy has been a key member since its inception, has also provided Ukraine with military assistance.
These measures have forced Italy into a familiar strategic dilemma: should it continue with an EU and NATO oriented foreign policy focused on the European land mass in the face of possible ruin, or seek its energy sources and economic future via the Mediterranean Sea?
Giorgia Meloni, is the leader of the Brothers of Italy Party that gained the most votes in Italy’s national elections held on 25 September 2022. She became Italy’s first female prime minister on 22 October 2022. Her party has neo-fascist roots. It is Euro-sceptic and pro-Russian. To forestall criticism that it is anti-EU and anti-NATO, Meloni has affirmed her fealty to both; in contrast, her coalition partners Silvio Berlusconi leader of the Forza Italia Party, and Matteo Salvini, the leader of Northern League Party, have both made pro-Russian statements.
What has largely been ignored is how Meloni rode to power on the strength of one slogan repeated above all others: ‘The Free Ride is Over’ [my translation].
What does this mean?
It is addressed to external audiences as well as a domestic one. Meloni, who has questioned the EU’s legal sovereignty over Italy, is warning Italy’s EU partners that they will no longer be able to secure a ‘free ride’ at the expense of Italy’s sovereign interests.
Since the end of World War II Italy has mainly followed a continental foreign policy, focused on integrating politically and economically with other European countries. This led to an industrial boom, particularly in the north of the country, while the Mediterranean part of Italy languished. Among its member nations, Italians became the most favourable to integration with the EU. Possibly this reflected a lack of confidence in their own state’s ability to govern the country well.
How then has Meloni come to her anti-EU stance?
The reason is the Euro. Since it began circulating in 2002, Italian living standards and wages have dropped while the cost of living has increased substantially. Entire sectors of Italy’s industrial base have delocalised to other countries. Mass layoffs, the abolition of the lifetime employment guarantee, and low birth-rates have weakened the family unit. Foreign buyers now own 40 per cent of Italy’s large public debt, which has grown to become larger than the country’s yearly GDP. Keeping within the stringent fiscal parameters laid down in the EU’s 1998 Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) has became a political obsession, justifying a string of technocratic governments whose monetarist policies have further compressed living standards. In 2022, almost one fifth of the population is on or below the poverty line.
The few bright spots in Italy’s economy mostly lie within the BRICS camp. One of them was Italy’s trade with Russia. Until 2021 Russia was Italy’s principal supplier of gas with almost 40 per cent of the total. Gas powers almost half of Italy’s electricity. Another positive development has been trade with China. As of 2019 Italy was China’s third largest buyer and fourth largest supplier of goods. Italy was also the third largest destination for Chinese foreign investment. The final bright spot is Italy’s trade with the Mediterranean countries, which accounts for over 22 percent of Italy’s energy imports. As of 2016, Italy was the fourth largest exporter to this region after China, the US and Germany in that order. In 2021, Libyan and Algerian sources combined covered 30 per cent of Italy’s gas imports. Italy’s reliance on energy imports from this region will grow as supplies from Russia decrease.
After Germany and France, Italy is the third largest economy in the Eurozone. Due to COVID, the EU suspended the SGP in May 2020 for an indefinite period. In March 2022, the Italian government called for the suspension to be continued because of the situation in Ukraine. Italy’s government debt to GDP ratio is currently over 155 per cent, well beyond the 60 per cent stipulated in the SGP. The country would default if the EU stopped funding its public debt. But under current circumstances, for how long would this support be forthcoming? Should Italy withdraw permanently from the SGP, the Euro would cease to be a viable currency. Some analysts believe that if Italy defaulted, the future of the EU itself would be at stake.
Enrico Colombatto, a professor of economics, has suggested that Italy would be better off seeking financial rescue from China, in exchange for some strategic assets, in particular access to the port of Trieste. A move towards stronger links with China would imply a shift in Italy’s foreign policy from a continental focus to a Mediterranean one.
EU sanctions against Russia have increased the cost of gas and pulverised Euro exchange rates, both further depressing living standards in Italy and increasing manufacturing costs. Italy’s gas prices have thus increased by a factor of five since 2021, prices of food and other essential goods have increased between 10-25%, and its economy could be facing approximately a 5 per cent drop in GDP next year.
Public opinion in Italy is split over the sanctions, with the Brothers of Italy’s electorate the most opposed to them. In response, the Brothers of Italy platform states that the party intends to renegotiate Italy’s over €250 billion EU COVID recovery plan to mitigate energy costs. It also promises to cut taxes, increase support for ‘traditional’ families and introduce employment incentives.
Similar centrifugal economic pressures are already being visited on other European countries. Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo has warned that as winter approaches, if energy prices are not reduced:
we are risking a massive deindustrialization of the European continent and the long-term consequences of that might actually be very deep … Our populations are getting invoices which are completely insane. At some point, it will snap. I understand that people are angry . . . people don’t have the means to pay it.
This is creating a situation where, according to Indian ex-diplomat and commentator M.K. Bhadrakumar: ‘The plain truth is that the European integration project is over and done with’.
These economic woes have inevitably impacted Italy’s defence and foreign policy. Historically, its membership in NATO was strongly opposed by the Italian socialist and communist parties. Today, public opinion is still against the deployment of NATO forces except for strictly defensive purposes: in May, only 10 per cent agreed to NATO forces directly intervening in Ukraine. A poll in June revealed that 58 per cent of Italians are opposed to sending weapons to Ukraine, one of the highest percentages in Europe. This is not surprising; after all, Article 11 of Italy’s postwar Constitution states:
Italy repudiates war as an instrument of offence to the freedom of other peoples and as a means of resolving international disputes; it allows, on conditions of parity with other states, to the limitations of sovereignty necessary for an order that ensures peace and justice among nations. [my translation]
This opposition to war belies Italy’s pivotal role in NATO: the country hosts at least eight important NATO bases. Naples is the linchpin of the NATO Allied Joint Force Command, which includes the US Sixth Fleet. While NATO has provided Italy with a security blanket in continental Western Europe, it has been detrimental to Italy’s strategic interests in the Mediterranean.
Since the Second World War Italian governments have traditionally espoused a friendly policy towards countries in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Africa. One major reason is its objective to ensure continuity of energy supply; another is to guarantee the viability of substantial Italian investment in those countries.
This policy has brought Italy into conflict with the United States on a number of occasions. During the Cold War there were three salient examples. In 1962, Enrico Mattei, CEO of the Italian state-run petroleum company AGIP and ‘neutralist’ or anti-NATO in his foreign policy stance, was killed in obscure circumstances after he challenged the Anglo-American ‘Seven Sisters’ oil cartel by buying oil from the Soviet Union and because he offered Middle Eastern oil producers, in particular Iran and Libya, a better deal. In 1985, Italian prime minister Bettino Craxi stopped US forces from arresting a Palestinian commando who had previously hijacked the Italian Achille Lauro liner in a stand-off at Sigonella in Sicily. Ostensibly the Italian government wanted to protect its sovereignty. In reality, it wanted to continue its policy of support for Arab nations. In 1986 Craxi’s government warned Muammar Qaddafi, the leader of Libya, that a US attack on the city of Tripoli was imminent, thereby saving his life.
After the Cold War, the US alliance has become harder for Italy to factor into its foreign policy. Qaddafi’s rule in Libya collapsed in 2011, only three years after he and Italy’s then prime minster Silvio Berlusconi, had signed a twenty-five-year ‘Friendship Treaty ’ for reparations and infrastructure development worth 5 billion dollars, which made Italian energy giant ENI Libya’s preferred partner for energy extraction. Libya’s collapse was facilitated by Italy’s NATO allies, in particular France, whose interests conflicted with Italy’s. Meloni criticised France’s intervention at the time, claiming it was motivated by neo-colonialism. The civil war that has ensued in Libya has seen Turkey and Italy pitted against France and Egypt. Currently the situation in Libya is in a state of flux, with alliances being broken and remade. ENI currently controls about 80 per cent of Libyan gas, which covers about 8 per cent of Italy’s total demand. In April 2022 Algeria replaced Russia as Italy’s leading source of gas through a pipeline named after Mattei.
Italy is in a particularly strategic position in regard to future energy supply routes as pointed out by energy geopolitics and geoeconomics expert Pier Paolo Raimondi:
Italy is well positioned to potentially benefit from the overall reconfiguration of energy flows to and within Europe, due to several factors. Its geographical position makes the country a potential transit hub and bridge between Mediterranean energy imports and European energy demand. This would position Italy at the top of the supply chain compared to the previous order.
Recent developments have made Italy’s position even more strategic. Italy now has a new opportunity to source gas directly from Russia and even to supply Europe. The Russian government has recently proposed to Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to expand the TurkStream pipeline, which currently supplies Russian gas to Turkey under the Black Sea. This pipeline does not pass through Ukraine. If expanded, TurkStream could be connected to Trans Adriatic Pipeline that is currently transporting gas to Italy from Azerbaijan, thereby offering an alternative to the gas pipelines passing through northern Europe. In another recent development, Abdul Hadi Al-Hweij, the foreign minister of the Interim Libyan Government based in Benghazi, supported by the Libyan National Army, which is pro-Russian, has invited Italy to buy Libyan petroleum and gas at much lower than market prices.
With the European energy crisis now undermining prospects of economic development, and with a Brothers of Italy-dominated government, Italy’s interest in a Euro-centrist or continental foreign policy is therefore likely to weaken. In the foreign policy section of its platform, the Brothers of Italy party reaffirms its commitment to NATO and the EU. However, it ends with a new assertiveness by advocating a Mediterranean-centred strategy:
Italy has a geographical location that allows it to channel the huge raw energy supply sources coming from North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, becoming a truly strategic hub: it is in the interest of the entire Union to diversify its supply lines as much as possible to free itself from Russian dependence …
Italy must once again become a protagonist in Europe, in the Mediterranean and on the international chessboard …
Italy is a natural platform in the Mediterranean … [Our policy is to] bring the Mediterranean back to the centre of Italian and European policy. ‘A Mattei formula for Africa …’ [my translation and italics]
The reference to Mattei is not coincidental; nor is the concept of Italy being a ‘natural platform’ in the Mediterranean. The latter was a pillar of Mussolini’s foreign policy, as he himself announced in 1936 in Milan: ‘Italy is an island immersed in the Mediterranean … If the Mediterranean for others is a route, for Italy it represents life itself’ [my translation].
In recent developments Meloni’s foreign policy has been pointing away from the EU and NATO. She and her political allies have publicly supported Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbàn, who has attacked the sanctions against Russia, following the EU’s condemnation of his authoritarian policies; Hungary is a NATO member but has signed a separate deal with Gazprom to secure supplies of Russian gas. Meloni’s party is also allied to the governing nationalist Right in Poland, the Czech Republic’s governing Civic Democratic Party, and the far right Sweden Democrats Party that triumphed in elections in September 2022. The German far right Alternative für Deutschland Party was ‘jubilant’ over Meloni’s success; it too has opposed sanctions against Russia and its vote is also on the rise. As in the 1930s, one should not discount ideological and political affinities across national borders, particularly when national interests also align. As Bhadrakumar warns: ‘Do not underestimate the “Meloni effect”. The heart of the matter is that far-right forces invariably have more to offer to the electorate in times of insecurity and economic hardship.’ In the current era, these affinities can be gathered under the broad ideological umbrella of ‘sovereigntism’, putting EU unity at risk.
Should Italy distance itself from NATO or leave it altogether, particularly in the light of Turkey’s ambivalent stance and the possibility of a Russian victory in Ukraine, it is doubtful that the alliance would be able to survive. This is not as far-fetched a thought as it might seem. According to retired Italian General Fabio Mini, former commander of the NATO-led KFOR mission in Kosovo (2002–03), NATO’s expansion to Eastern Europe over recent decades, promoted by the United States, has further undermined the alliance’s cohesion and unity of purpose. The Ukraine–Russia crisis, as pointed out by Thomas Hughes, a scholar of international and defence policy, ‘marks an existential crisis for NATO’. Under these circumstances the United States would find it increasingly difficult to maintain a military presence in Italy.
On 1 October 2022, following news that Germany’s Social Democrat-led government had rejected Italy’s proposed Europe-wide price cap on gas and that Italy would no longer receive gas from Russia through Austria, Meloni addressed a crowd of angry farmers in Milan: ‘Italy’s posture must return to the defence of its national interests … It doesn’t mean having a negative stance toward others, it means having a positive one for ourselves … because everyone else is doing it’.
In response to the explosions in the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic, the Italian navy is now patrolling Italy’s Mediterranean gas supply pipelines. All of these developments bear the hallmark of an Italian Mediterranean policy in the ascendant over a continental one.
Meloni’s slogan ‘The free ride is over’ is eerily reminiscent of Mussolini’s ‘mutilated victory’, which referenced Italy’s ostensible ‘betrayal’ by the Allied powers after their victory in the First World War. Although the post-Versailles outcome was not entirely negative for Italy, Mussolini leveraged widespread resentment at the withdrawal of territorial concessions promised by Great Britain and France to pave his way to power in October 1922. By 1925 Mussolini had turned his government into a dictatorship. Fascist foreign policy, which began with the intent of working with the Allied powers, changed dramatically after Italy’s successful second invasion of Ethiopia in 1935–36, whereby Italy began to carve out its own ‘place in the sun’, a Fascist slogan of the time. Chagrined by British and French opposition to this war, Mussolini joined Hitler’s Germany in an alliance to overturn the post-First World War order, having decided that this was the best option for Italy to secure access to the raw materials its economy so desperately needed and to fashion the Mediterranean empire Italian nationalists had so long desired.
In her inaugural speech to the Italian parliament on 25 October 2022, Meloni highlighted the shortcomings of the EU in the current energy and economic crisis:
… how was it possible that an integration that began in 1950, 70 years ago, as the Economic Community of Coal and Steel … later finds itself, after having disproportionately expanded its spheres of competence, more exposed precisely in regard to energy supply and raw materials …
The war has aggravated the already very difficult situation caused by increases in the cost of energy and fuel, unsustainable costs for many companies that may be forced to close down and lay off their workers, and for millions of families who are already unable to cope with rising bills. …
The absence of a common [EU] response leaves room only for measures by individual national governments that risk undermining our internal market and the competitiveness of our companies. …
The context in which the government will have to act is a very complicated one, perhaps the most difficult since World War II. Geopolitical tensions and the energy crisis are holding back hopes of a post-pandemic economic recovery. Macroeconomic forecasts for 2023 indicate a marked slowdown in the Italian, European and world economies, in a climate of absolute uncertainty. …
Nearing the end of her speech, Meloni directs her audience’s attention to her party’s foreign policy platform:
Next 27 October will mark the sixtieth anniversary of the death of Enrico Mattei, a great Italian who was among the architects of post-war reconstruction, capable of forging mutually beneficial agreements with nations all over the world, a virtuous model of collaboration and growth between the European Union and African nations, not least to counter the worrying spread of Islamist radicalism, especially in the sub-Saharan area. And so we would like to finally recover, after years in which we preferred to backtrack, the strategic role that Italy has in the Mediterranean. [my translation]
Should Italy’s economy and its energy security deteriorate further due to the embargo on Russian energy supplies, or should NATO troops intervene directly in the conflict, it is increasingly likely that the Italian government will consider realigning its international orientation away from a continental strategy centred on the EU and NATO and towards a Mediterranean-focused one that is closer to BRICS. It could even become the third ‘I’ in the BRICS after India and Iran, as one analyst has advocated, creating a tipping point in the global economy. At the very least, the Italian government could decide to oscillate between these two opposing geopolitical options to increase its margins for diplomatic manoeuvre, a traditional aspect of its foreign policy in the past. Should either scenario come to pass, Italy will have made a substantial contribution to the break-down of the current US-centred world and accelerated the passage to a multipolar world order.
Gerardo Papalia (PhD) is a Research Affiliate at the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University in Australia. His expertise is in history and Italian Diaspora studies including literature, religion and cinematography.
Italy may or may not depart from NATO and possibly from EU or at least Euro..
Whatever it does it’s for itself.
I doubt anyone in Africa or Asia will be glad to welcome a former colonial country as their Lord and Master. They can keep the mattei formula to themselves. A resounding no thank you. I’m sure everyone in Africa will spell it out clearly. The days of Europeans giving formulas to Africa are over. Africans are capable of taking care of themselves.
With agriculture and industry taking root Africa itself will be needing a lot of the energy it has for future industrial development and better life for its people.
Meloni, at least so far, has proven to be a continuation of US vassal status.
Italy in fact continues to supply weapons to that shit hole country called ucraine and is about to send advanced AD systems (which probably means they are already there).
Some claim that she has no choice regardless of her wishes or regardless of what the best interest of a sovereign Italy would be.
The truth is that Italy is NOT a sovereign nation.
Italy is entirely under the control of the US terrorist regime(s). Secret treaties are in place which ensure that. It would take a major major cataclysmic revolution to even begin to change that reality.
You’re so correct comrade!
Conti twice and Super Mario (Dracula) Draghi, safe-hands, banker, economist, academic ensured peace of mind for Banking Cartel.
With the Mafia disembowelling or hanging (or both) CIA stooges, 5th & 6th columnists and other financial undesirables there’s hope for Italy.
No way is the Mafia giving up its sweetheart Russian energy deals. They’ll say, Heh Joe, you support the IRA but wanna screw us, well, watch your US goons swing.
President Putin, his Diplomats & Commanders will just be loving this EU Circus Shitfest, the backstabbing, the tears and anguish currently on display; they threw all their financial gimmicks and lip-service at Russia and another decade of pain should be good for their souls.
Like India and Hungary the Italians through the front or backdoor will receive their concessions.
unfortunately you’re right….
I’ve never posted a negative comment on this site but Removed. Mod. – Meloni spoke at neocon CPAC last summer, she is a member of the globalist Aspen Institute and today she announced that Italy will no longer be purchasing Russian LNG by winter 2024/2025.
Furthermore, the debt level of Italy and dependence on ECB buying their bonds and the fact that they don’t have their own currency destroy any notion of sovereignty.
There was a time when the American imperium offered some concomitant benefits to Europe. Now it’s the opposite.
Alex Mercouris explains, from the Imperial heart of London, why the USA is a replacement theology screwup, in concert with Clayton Morris and Gonzalo Lira.
(Imperial liars and thieves shall not prosper, no matter whatever covert scam they plan for arms or petroleum money, is another way to put it. It doesn’t matter who they demonize, be it Putin against the American Imperium, or an African rebel chief, rebelling against the British Empire.)
It’s all replacement theology or replacement empire-ology, or vampire-ology, driven by pure greed and deceit, vs one big happy world family of god, with agrarian style cooperative objectives and international development.
Of course Mercouris dwelled on the great strengths of democracy before he had to leave, which are some degree of openness and sharing, for rational compromises between imperialism, theology and God, in my view.
Since I see God as truth, in this context, an empire of lies without God is doomed anyway. I haven’t seen Mercouris ever talk about God but I haven’t followed him devotedly, like Ritter or McGovern or even this thread. He may be an atheist but the truth is God, knowledge is power and if God is ever a blind spot, it’s like Rambam (Maimonides) says, that we have to admit that we do not Know. (Agnostic)
At about the 1 hour mark, it moves to US politics, after Alex takes off for another commitment.
All empires have their lying BS theology. Replacing empires is a lot like replacing a god, or gods, or replacement theology. Nationalism is almost like theology, where the nation becomes god.
And Canada is becoming more of a part of the US Imperium, as is Israel at the very heart of it, but replacement Israel, in the form of Nuland, Blinken, et al.
https://youtu.be/xJs3SGKqk-o?t=44m24s
Of course when Mercouris talks about the great tradition of diplomacy in Europe, it seems that there are lots of toddlers in Europe also, which is Morris’s analogy for the incommunicative and obtuse quality of leadership that we have. Lira is more direct, at about 53 minutes in the discussion, calling them morons, or fools, but probably in a more safe and secular sense.
“whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205:21-26&version=NIV
The final word seems to be that the empire must succumb, and the question is whether it can do so gracefully without aiding and abetting extinction level events, like nuclear war and catastrophic climate change.
Somehow imperial Russia is not stuck with the conundrum and essential hypocrisy of having to espouse democratic values, all while manifesting the most ruthless bullying, venality and corporate multinational privateering and piracy.
Thank you, Gerardo Papalia, for this extremely interesting overview of Italy’s geostrategic situation. I have always wondered how, actually, Italy fit into the Northern European picture, since so much of it hangs down into the Arab world—Sicily and other parts of Italy such as Ravenna were so strongly influenced by Greek, Roman, Hellenistic, and Arab influences and even those farther East, in Central and Eastern Asia.
I just listened to Mercouris speaking about British imperialism (the link provided0. With all due respect—I am generally a fan of Merouris as an analyst of current events—I don’t think he understands the actual process of wealth accumulation in Britain in the 19th Century. Mercouris seems to leave out where British industrialists’ wealth actually came from and and the exploitation and coercion of labor that it involved, not only in North America but also in Britain itself. After the Civil War, the need to replace slave-produced cotton with other sources meant that the coercion of both domestic and foreign labor was accomplished via newfangled administrative, legal, financial, and physical means. And of course the accumulation of capital depended on capturing markets for Britain’s production: deindustrializing colonies, turning them into foreign-managed and controlled sources of raw materials while driving down the prices of the raw materials (as occurred post war with cotton), and turning the colonies into markets for finished goods.
For an outstanding historical case study—an utterly fundamental one— I urge Saker Vineyard readers to read Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (2015, winner of the Bancroft Prize), chaps. 10 & 11.
A remarkably noteworthy essay, Gerardo. Thank you so much for this comprehensive and fully nuanced overview.
“How then has Meloni come to her anti-EU stance?”
She has no “anti-EU” stance.
She was just instructed to contest alongside Poland the French and German EU leadership which is not enthusiastic about WW3.
This is a superb piece of analysis. Many thanks for the historical and political shades of a nation we don’t talk about much. One can see, from this essay, the sheer weight of any pivot that Italy might make.
This piece took us beneath the surface appearances of whatever Meloni must do to balance the swirl of opinions and forces around her. Deep below the surface, at the tectonic plates, that huge Mediterranean island could lever the balance of power into a new shape entirely.
Personally, I would welcome this. So, thanks to the background here from Dr. Papalia, I can watch the situation with more knowledge.
Many thanks!
Thanks Gerardo for your precise and detailed article.
At the moment Italy is still far away from a BRICS scenario.
It is more a wishful thinking now.
But EU is asking everytime more and more to Italy, and we are getting close to the point that Italy won’t be able to agree to politics that are going against the interests of its citizens.
Giorgia Meloni still has a high consensus, but (you’re right) majority of her supporters are against war, against taxes, against the expropriation of its wealth (Italian families wealth is one of the richest in Europe especially in real estate but not only) that Germany through the EU has been planning to steal for years.
Meloni has always stated that she would prefer a kind of new status for the European Union: a confederation of sovereign countries.
Therefore I could envisage a scenario where Italy being not able anymore to submit to the impositions of Brussels bureaucrats (and German puppets) that would bring it to bankruptcy and to the definitive impoverishment of its citizens, will constitute with the south European countries like Spain, Greece, Malta, Cyprus and probably France (led by a new sovereignist leader) a new Confederation of Nations with a different currency.
This would mean the definitive end of German leadership of Europe, and at the same time, the rapprochement with the countries that of course have been its natural economic outlets. This could naturally include a close collaboration with the BRICS countries.
It’s a very ambitious program but it will be precisely the insane EU shortsightedness that will push Italy and other countries (I see for example a Vox-led Spain) to take this step. Furthermore the failure of the sick project of NATO and U.S. vassals against Russia will serve to accelerate decisions leading to the new European Confederation of Sovereign Nations
Russia knows its history that is why they will win. Europe does not know its history that is why they have lost every attack against Russia.
Congrats on a very well-documented and written article, Gerardo/Dr. Papalia.
A few points from a fellow Italian.
1) I wish we could join the BRICS, that’d be marvelous for the reasons you explain: it’s also impossible.
2) As people above here already written we have ZERO sovereignty. 0, none, nil, nothing. We are occupied by US troops (I know, I know, it’s “an alliance”), some hundred-fifty bases including as many nukes. Our government is infiltrated head to toes, down to the administrative unit: think-tanks (Aspen, ISPI, IAI, whatever chirpy acronym you can think of); freemasonry (P2 of course, and those that have not been exposed and are therefore more powerful and dangerous); mafia (which is really the freemasonry’s dirty hand/its popular equivalent); above all, literally, our “President”. From Latin prae sideo: “the one that sits above”. Dear old Mattarella sitting (and …) on our heads by gracious concession of NATO, to ensure their biddings be done like a good viceroy would do even in the least(est) colony that we are.
3) Giorgia is pretty much behaving as pro-EU and pro-NATO and pro-evil, at least openly. I know and I wrote she professed to be proRussian and of course Atlanticism shouldn’t match with her values, but it did match with her will to power and to that will to power to be finally satisfied. What’s in her heart/her family’s? Can she really ignore the KGB called Mattei two weeks before the American/French blew him up to try and save him? Can she like Joe Biden, REALLY? I don’t know what to tell you. Her official policies are Poland 2.0.
I agree with other people saying that MAYBE after Ukraine is exposed and exploded, then Giorgia could be the person attempting if not a U-turn, at least an exit from highway to hell. But things have to get much much worse before we might see that chance of them getting better. And so far, Giorgia is going out of her way to make things get worse.
I mean we gambled on Ukraine more money than we received from the EU support and rebuild plan (PNNR)!
Oh, and 4): we are not that relevant. We really aren’t. I know we are born and raised within Italy’s history and tradition. And self-love/amor proprio is legit. But I would reverse your last sentence: the breaking down of the US-centered world could rescue Italy’s status and restore it to some extent. I highly doubt the other way round would be realistic.
An excellent analysis, thankful so much Dr Papalia, well written, well researched & well referenced.
I had been fairly forlorn about Italy’s position re: Ukraine & Russian energy imports and was delighted to read the prospects for BRICS membership now that a critical mass aka tipping point has been achieved.
The most important step will be for Italy to regain monetary sovereignty the insanity of nations surrendering the ability to issue their own currencies is simply unbelievable. Ignoring the SGP, or at least arguing for its continual suspension, is also paramount.
I’ve thought from the start of Russia’s SMO that the disintegration of the EU & NATO were distinct possibilities given a Russian victory and the US’s continual de-industrialization of EU’s largest economy, Germany (which every leader on the Continent will be keenly witnessing, fearing that they could be next).
Having read this piece, I’m now even more convinced of those two outcomes.
Wiki
Prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, she was in favour of better relations with Russia and supported lifting sanctions on the Russian Federation in 2014.[244] In 2018, she congratulated Vladimir Putin for his re-election as president.[245] In her 2021 biography book, she wrote that Russia under Putin defends European values and Christian identity.[246] She has since condemned the invasion and pledged to keep sending arms to Ukraine,[247] and moved towards Atlanticism.[248][249][250] She is supportive of NATO,
she is also member of the Aspen Institute
She is probably another transatlantic puppet playing the right wing game
I definitelydo not trust her
so if she is really the one she plays we will see in the future
Thank you for this great article which explains the role and position of Italy, a country which we do not hear much about.
As you pointed out, Italy’s debt is huge, which makes it dependent on the EU and on financial markets. How could they drive an independent foreign policy in this case? Maybe indeed with the help of China… They are in a corner and such position will only favor drastic measures, which will lead to more conflict.
That said, I see every country in Europe facing the same set of issues, driven by EU diktat, self-destructive economic policies (the Euro was the biggest mistake) generating more debt, and unlimited immigration.